Mine? I plan on taking half of our emergency fund and committing it to the stock market in individual company holdings. I’ve long been an advocate of index funds, all of our retirement savings are in index funds, and only recently have I been dabbling in buying stock in companies that offer dividends. Our emergency fund has twelve months of expenses, a conservative amount because I am self-employed and my wife is a lightly compensated graduate student.

We will invest half of the fund over the next six months in individual stocks and then replenish the emergency fund with income as the months pass. Part of the process will be learning more about the investing and the stock market in general, so this won’t be a random selection of stocks “we think will do great,” but a more analytical approach. The idea is to learn more about investing in the stock market, perhaps learning it’s just not for me, and the means to measure success will be in committing to investments and feeling good about it.

It follows the whole SMART mantra and I am confident this is a resolution we’ll be able to keep.